Suddenly, after the penning of the city, you are high enough and close enough to a respectable-sized window to see the sky. It is a day of immense white clouds, thick, shaved-ice clouds, and what strikes you is not the largeness of each mound nor the blueness of the sky seen through the gaps where they don't quite overlap but the contrast between these clouds and the buildings in the foreground, pathetic, stagnant human constructs, concrete disguised by paint and prettied by glass like colored trinkets, perfect, unimaginative geometries, infection-like in their pathos. The sky, by contrast, drifts east to west as though making their way to some entertainment, dwarfing the city, unpredictable and patterened as though following a rule ungraspable for its subtlety. The clouds are nuanced, infinite, diverse. They are not just white, they are snow, eggshell, alabaster, dolphin. Skinless, they fill and watch over and are apathetic to those of us below. They hide in plain sight a revelation: they are God, reification or reality. In a natural life humans humans would never be able to recognize God for lack of contrast. And even while you mull over your discovery, the sky moves on on its interminable scrolling. A bird breaks through the edges of the clouds to become visible. It glides its flapless circle, reenters the cloud. You wonder, what must it feel like to fly through the divine?

The bottom part was originally the entire character meaning cloud and it came from a squiggle representing billowing vapours, later stylized and then substitued with the character meaning to meet/speak with for ease of writing.

Later on, the character for rain was added to the top to emphasize the meaning of cloud.

Cloud is also another name for the internet via a pipe from your ISP. You'll see a cloud on Visio drawings showing how your network is connected to a internet router which is connected to a cloud. The cloud can also be a generalization of all of your servers on the WAN if your company is particularly big. An even more general definition would be a large amount of computers and devices connected via data communication mediums.

Cloud (?), n. [Prob. fr. AS. cld a rock or hillock, the application arising from the frequent resemblance of clouds to rocks or hillocks in the sky or air.]

1.

A collection of visible vapor, or watery particles, susponded in the upper atmosphere.

I do set my bow in the cloud.
Gen. ix. 13.

⇒ A classification of clouds according to their chief forms was first proposed by the meteorologist Howard, and this is still substantially employed. The following varieties and subvarieties are recognized: (a) Cirrus. This is the most elevated of all the forms of clouds; is thin, long-drawn, sometimes looking like carded wool or hair, sometimes like a brush or room, sometimes in curl-like or fleecelike patches. It is the cat's-tail of the sailor, and the mare's-tail of the landsman. (b) Cumulus. This form appears in large masses of a hemispherical form, or nearly so, above, but flat below, one often piled above another, forming great clouds, common in the summer, and presenting the appearance of gigantic mountains crowned with snow. It often affords rain and thunder gusts. (c) Stratus. This form appears in layers or bands extending horizontally. (d) Nimbus. This form is characterized by its uniform gray tint and ragged edges; it covers the sky in seasons of continued rain, as in easterly storms, and is the proper rain cloud. The name is sometimes used to denote a raining cumulus, or cumulostratus. (e) Cirro-cumulus. This form consists, like the cirrus, of thin, broken, fleecelice clouds, but the parts are more or less rounded and regulary grouped. It is popularly called mackerel sky. (f) Cirro-stratus. In this form the patches of cirrus coalesce in long strata, between cirrus and stratus. (g) Cumulo-stratus. A form between cumulus and stratus, often assuming at the horizon a black or bluish tint. -- Fog, cloud, motionless, or nearly so, lying near or in contact with the earth's surface. -- Storm scud, cloud lying quite low, without form, and driven rapidly with the wind.

2.

A mass or volume of smoke, or flying dust, resembling vapor.

"A thick cloud of incense."

Ezek. viii. 11.

3.

A dark vein or spot on a lighter material, as in marble; hence, a blemish or defect; as, a cloud upon one's reputation; a cloud on a title.

4.

That which has a dark, lowering, or threatening aspect; that which temporarily overshadows, obscures, or depresses; as, a cloud of sorrow; a cloud of war; a cloud upon the intellect.

5.

A great crowd or multitude; a vast collection.

"So great a cloud of witnesses."

Heb. xii. 1.

6.

A large, loosely-knitted scarf, worn by women about the head.

Cloud on a (or the) titleLaw, a defect of title, usually superficial and capable of removal by release, decision in equity, or legislation. -- To be under a cloud, to be under suspicion or in disgrace; to be in disfavor. -- In the clouds, in the realm of facy and imagination; beyond reason; visionary.